Entry 20: Vasya Forever! or "My Kingdom for a Horse!"

So one day, realizing that all we had for the day was an extremely boring text, and that I had to do something to hold my students' interest while we went over a long list of vocabulary, I decided that I would give all my students new names (other tactics to keep their interest include dancing on tables and eating their papers [seriously]). Well, at first I just flat out pretended like I didn't recognize one of my students and made her introduce herself (I must've done a good job acting -- she seemed truly put off), and then I started calling all my students by different names. First, I just started calling them each other's names, and then I got a bit more creative: Natalya Mikhailovna, Dostoevsky, Prime Minister Putin, William Shakespeare, Michael Jackson (I can't escape him!), Dima Bilan (Russia's most famous pop singer -- he won Eurovision, which, apparently, the United States also participates in [I can't imagine we take it seriously... I'm guessing we just send William Hung every year]), Megaphone Beeline-ovich (which I formed out of the names of Russia's biggest mobile phone service providers), and Ksenia Sobchak (a scandalous Russian reality-show star affectionately referred to as "The Russian Paris Hilton"). All that thinking on my feet and I was pretty tired by the second time we went around the room. Once I got to Nastya, I had no idea what to call her, but then her cotabulatrix (the girl who sat at the same table with her) said "Nastya" in a low voice, which I misheard as "Vasya" (a short form of the male name "Vasily"), and by which I thenceforth proceeded to refer to her, as the rest of the class somehow found it pretty hilarious.
So, borrowing an idea from a Portuguese class I once had, I decided that we'd try to go around the room and create a story together, sentence by sentence. Not surprisingly, a number of our newly renamed classmates made it into the story, and, much to my surprise, we actually ended up producing a long, semi-cohesive narrative with everyone's participation. Having said that, I propose to reproduce our story in its entirety, with explanatory marginalia:

One day, a long time ago, Natasha [one of our students] was walking with her friends – Vasya, Fedya [Dostoevsky -- "Fedya" is short for "Fyodor"], Michael Jackson, William Shakespeare, [Ksenia] Sobchak, and Dimka Bilan.
Approximately one week ago, Ted and I [this part was written by David, our most ambitious student, whose sentences have a habit of rivaling those of William Faulkner] met all of these guys, and Michael Jackson began to dance for us on the table, and Vasya said, “Wow! Shakespeare, please write down everything that’s happening!” and, after that, Sobchak took her horse and kissed it, and, after that, the horse gave her a wedding ring, and then Dimka Bilan began to sing “Da, dum da dum, da dum da dum" [I think they meant the wedding song].
And so, Vasya and Natasha left with them, and then went into a VIP room, and… [they insisted on the ambiguous three dots] Vasya gave a star to Natasha.
And, after that, Fedya took some vodka and gave it to the horse, and, after that, everyone started crying, “Горько!” ["Gor'ko" - "sour"; what people cry at a wedding to get the newlyweds to kiss, although it stands to reason that the prospect of a sour kiss would more likely be something of a turnoff].
After that, Vasya began to cry, “I’m a pervert! And I want you, horse! I want to have a lot of children with you! And I believe that their names will be ‘Vasya’s horse’”.
Dostoevsky got wasted and hit Vasya with an axe. He quickly went home and started writing. Shakespeare and Ksenia Sobchak walked their dog in the park and talked about songs and musical groups. After Vasya’s escapade, Dimka Bilan and Michael Jackson organized a dance battle; at this moment, Vasya appeared with a bottle of “Putinka” vodka [a pretty shitty brand] and cried, “I want both of them!” Vasya and Dimka Bilan drank a lot of vodka and got into a fight. After that, Vasya hit Dima with a stick while Dima was sleeping.
And then Dimka took international stars like Metallica, System of a Down, Avril, Nirvana, and Rammstein and tried to sing songs in their style, but, during the song, he began to cry. All of the rock stars called him a little girl. Dima thought everything would be ok, but, since he doesn’t have a good voice, they killed him [one of our more goth-y students thought up this part].
Michael Jackson kissed Sobchak and said, “Excuse me, I love your horse!” Sobchak slapped him in the face and went into the other room. Dostoevsky, who likes to write short stories about love, wrote a story about himself (and his horse). Sobchak and Natasha went for a walk in the street and meet Dimka Bilan.
Vasya is a punk. Since Vasya killed our friend Dima Bilan, Michael Jackson knocked Vasya down with a full bottle of vodka. Since Dima Bilan is well-loved and admired, he rose from the dead and sang, “Dimka Bilan forever!” Vasya got intoxicated, because the vodka was shitty.
After that, Dima Bilan became a zombie. But then the horse kissed Vasya, and Vasya rose from the dead, but Vasya told the horse that he didn’t loved him, and that he would make sausage out of him. Since Dostoevsky was an alchemist, he raised all of our heroes from the dead. Vasya sang “Vasya Forever!” to his beloved horse.
And then Vasya, Dima, Sobchak, Fedya, Michael Jackson, Shakespeare, Natasha, and the horse got married and lived happily ever after.
THE END

Ok, possibly not as coherent as I remembered it being, but likely all the better for it. Considering the Russianity of the story, the reader may not be surprised to note the strong presence of vodka, an allusion to "Crime and Punishment", and the presence of that certain peculiar proclivity rumored to have caused the death of Catherine the Great -- you know the one I'm talking about...